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CYMENE

Volume 7 · 141 words · 1823 Edition

in Botany, a name given by the ancient Greeks to a plant with which they used to dye woollen stuffs yellow, and with which the women of those times used also to tinge the hair yellow, which was then the favourite colour. The cymene of the Greeks is evidently the same plant with the lutea herba of the Latins; or what is now called dyers weed. See RESEDA, Botany Index.

CYNÆGIRUS, an Athenian, celebrated for his extraordinary courage. He was brother to the poet Æschylus. After the battle of Marathon he pursued the flying Persians to their ships, and seized one of their vessels with his right hand, which was immediately severed by the enemy. Upon this he seized Cynagirus the vessel with his left hand, and when he had lost that also, he still kept his hold with his teeth.